Societal concepts of worth

There is another thread that, somewhat off topic, discusses how diamonds are over-valued and a fake tradition. It got me thinking about gemstones that can be created artificially, but are exactly the same as the natural versions except more perfect. These are sold for only a tiny, tiny fraction of the cost of the natural versions. Example: artificial rubies. They are exactly the same composition as natural ones, except that they lack flaws (often the only method to tell that they are artificial) and that they can be purchased for 1000th the price of the natural one. How does this make any sense? No one outside of a gm lab would know that one was wearing an artificial ruby, it is a ruby by all criteria, but the average buyer believes that it is worth it to pay a lot more for a natural gem that only some expert can tell them is natural because it is flawed.

Same idea with art. People will pay $10 million for an authentic Picasso, then hide it in a vault and put a nice $5000 reproduction on their living room wall. In fact the buyer themselves probably couldn't tell the original from the reproduction apart even on close inspection- for most people all the visual pleasure of looking at either would be the same. Only an expert could tell the two apart, and often there are disagreements even among experts as to the authenticity of a given painting. Yet to many people, the emotional pleasure of knowing that they own "the real one" rather than an indistinguishable (to them) copy is worth $9,950,000 dollars.

Explanations or other examples?

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1OPnCBR